A LETHARGIC High and Mighty Coventry Blaze almost lost ground in the championship race after crashing to their first home league defeat of the season....

A LETHARGIC High and Mighty Coventry Blaze almost lost ground in the championship race after crashing to their first home league defeat of the season.

On paper, yesterday's 2-0 loss to bottom side Milton Keynes Kings was highly embarrassing. But after sacking three British players and bringing in new faces, Kings were able to add an attacking element to their well-organised defensive game.

They will face a fine, however, for having more imports than British players on the bench.

At times Blaze found it difficult to get over their blue line as Kings harried them in the neutral zone. The lack of flow in the game, and tiredness after a long week for some of the players, led Blaze to deliver their worst performance of the season, and a series of long shots rained in on Ian Burt in the Coventry goal.

Coventry found it difficult to get anywhere near the Kings net for the first half of the game, and even when they got the puck found it difficult to seriously challenge.

After a goalless first period, in which Steve Chartrand with a breakaway came the closest to goal, Janne Ronkainen powered through the Blaze defence to put Kings one up.

Burt was called on to save from Blair, Clarke and Daniels and the Kings forwards managed several attacks, while Coventry were reduced to dumping and chasing the puck around the boards. Only Russell Cowley, on his sole shift, seemed to have any spark.

A poor performance by referee Mark Thompson added to Blaze's woes, most notably when Claude Dumas was called for diving after being chopped down by Paterson on the blue line.

A further minor on Steve Roberts for roughing led to Kings' second goal. Burt, overstretched after saving one shot, could do nothing to stop Blair scoring.

Coach Paul Thompson played with an empty net for 90 seconds, but Coventry couldn't find the goal.

A victory by Fife over Dundee stopped the league leaders from extending their lead in the Findus British National League, but Blaze will need to get back in shape to meet the Stars' when they meet for the first time next weekend.

Thompson admitted that his players were tired after a midweek game. Watkins and Tasker had three games in consecutive days with the Great Britain squad and were clearly tired.

Thompson said: "Maybe this is the kick up the backside that we needed. They were resilient and we didn't take our chances. They are a good side and they are well coached. I'm not going to go home and sulk over this - it's my job to find out what went wrong and put it right."

Saturday's encounter with Hull Thunder was a more routine affair. Dominating at times without controlling the game, Blaze ran up a 5-2 victory despite scrappy periods of play.

Blaze met the Thunder's physical challenge head on, and ended up taking more minor penalties.

Coventry reinforced their reputation as slow starters during a moribund first period. Steve Roberts broke the deadlock on a powerplay.

With minutes remaining in the second period Shaun Johnson scored against his brothers' Anthony and Stephen team.

The best goal of the night came in the 48th minute, when a sharp onetwo between Roberts and Steve Carpenter saw the defenceman score.

A delaying the game penalty was called against Ian Burt when he illegally killed the puck, but referee Evans didn't realise that he should have called a penalty shot as there was left than two minutes remaining.

Thunder took the powerplay with six on four, and Carpenter sealed the win when he fired into the empty net.